The sermon text provided below is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

Well, this morning we continue to consider this passage in Isaiah chapter 2, my sermon
text being Isaiah 2 verses 6 through 22.
I’m going to begin reading and fill out the context a little bit, but there is so much
in this chapter we couldn’t just cover it in one week, so we’re going to again consider
a prominent theme in this chapter of God’s Word, and that is the theme of the Lord.
God’s Holy Word, Isaiah chapter 2, I’m going to begin reading at verse 5.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
For you have rejected the house of Jacob, because they are full of things from the East,
and of fortune tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of
foreigners.
Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
Their land is filled with idols.
They bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.
So man is humbled, and brought low.
Do not forgive them.
Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the
splendor of his majesty.
The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled,
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that
is lifted up, and it shall be brought low, against all the cedars of Lebanon lofty and
lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains, and against
all the uplifted hills, against every high tower, and against every fortified wall, against
all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft.
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought
low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols shall utterly pass
away.
And people shall enter the caves of the rocks, and the holes of the ground from before the
terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the
earth.
In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which
they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats, to enter the caverns
of the rocks, and the clefts of the cliffs from before the terror of the Lord, and from
the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.
Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Let us pray.
Our gracious Lord God and Heavenly Father, you are a glorious God, a majestic God, and
Though Heavenly Father, you have befriended us in Christ, you are not our chum, you’re
not our pal, you are our sovereign Lord.
May we tremble before you in holy reverence and awe, even as we delight in you and receive
of your goodness through Christ.
We would pray that by your spirit you would be powerfully present in the preaching of
your word this day.
We ask once again, Lord, that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak
only that which is faithful and true to your word.
And we pray that your word would go forth in grace and power, and that you would implant
your word in our souls, in the soil of our hearts, that it might bear forth much good
fruit to your praise and honor and glory.
We pray all these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people’s
Amen, you may be seated.
Again, the title of my sermon today is The Terror of the Lord, and there are six key
words that the children can be listening for.
The words judgment, fear, terror, grace, faith, and refuge.
Well, dear friends, many today claim to love God, but few today seem to actually fear God.
In fact, I suspect that the idea of God as a terrifying being would not even register
on the spiritual radar screens of most folks today, including many professing Christians.
Instead, most likely, it would be a completely foreign concept.
The terror of God, God as a terrifying being, that would be a totally foreign concept to
many.
Many today seem to view God as a benign, mild man, or sort of grandfatherly figure who is
being back, comfortably uninvolved in our lives, a sort of behind-the-scenes deity who
will pretty much leave us alone to do our own thing and follow our own chosen path,
unless of course we require a divine therapist or emotional support deity.
Then he’s right there with us until we’re ready to rise up from the therapist’s couch
and get on with our lives, at which time he obligingly steps back into the shadows, into
that divine closet of hiddenness and aloofness.
The so-called God of popular imagination and spirituality today is a deity who basically
says to people, you know what, don’t worry, don’t worry, hey, it’s fine, I love you no
matter what, I’m certainly not going to hold you to any kind of moral standard, no, I don’t
do that thing, I mean, I’m happy with you as you are, so you do you.
The God of popular spirituality today is a God who always affirms and who never ever
judges. He is a God who shrugs his shoulders at sin, who looks the other way and who basically
says, eh, whatever, not a big deal. He is a God who never holds anyone accountable,
never requires his rational creatures to assume moral responsibility for their attitudes or
their actions. He is a God who never treats people with the dignity of actually possessing
personal moral agency.
Now the theological belief system behind this popular contemporary view of God, this popular
spirituality has sometimes been described as moralistic therapeutic deism. Moralistic
because its tone is focused on morality and it’s basically a very preachy point of view
that says, hey, be nice to each other. Certainly the scriptures say that we should treat our
neighbor with love and dignity, but moralistic therapeutic deism, moralistic in its focus
and moralizing in its thrust rather than redemptive. It is therapeutic in that the chief end of
man according to this view of God is to attain personal happiness and good self-esteem. And
it is deism in the sense that the God of moralistic therapeutic deism is a distant God. He’s a
God who kind of wound up the universe and it made it to run on its own and certainly
doesn’t intervene unless we really, really want him to or need him to. He is sort of
a spare tire God. You know, how often do you think when you’re driving down the road, how
often do you think about the spare tire? When you have a flat tire, you’re glad for that
spare tire to be there and in an emergency you can pull out that spare tire, but most
of the time it’s back there and it’s uninvolved in your life and you can ignore it safely.
Dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning from the book of the prophet Isaiah
utterly smashes, utterly demolishes the popular modern false idol of moralistic therapeutic
deism even as it also demolishes every other idol, every other sentimental shallow view
of God. Our text for this Lord’s Day morning sermon is an eschatological passage. It’s
a passage about the doctrine of the end times. It’s a passage that points us to the ultimate
end and goal of human history, of redemptive history. It is an eschatological passage that
anticipates and predicts the day of the Lord, meaning that final judgment day. That final
judgment day when Yahweh, the God of Israel, the true and living God, the holy one of Israel
will humble all that is lofty and proud, will bring his holy wrath against the unrepentant
wicked and who alone will be exalted on that final day. And as we’ve seen in this passage,
if you were paying attention to the reading of this passage, one of the prominent themes
of this judgment passage is the terror of the Lord. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
in this age of moralistic therapeutic deism and other similar idolatries, we as God’s
people we need to relearn and recapture a balanced biblical view of the fear and terror
of the Lord. And this actually, understanding the terror of the Lord will deepen our appreciation
for the love and grace and mercy of the Lord. After all, the scriptures indicate that it
is only as our hearts and our understandings and our consciences are gripped by the fear
and terror of the Lord’s infinite majestic holiness, only then will we come to joyfully
embrace and glory in the amazing grace, mercy, and goodness of the Lord that are given to
us in the person and saving work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now as we approach
our text for this Lord’s Day morning, I would again remind us that this is not Isaiah’s
ideas. What we have in this passage is not man’s imagination about God or man’s conceptualizing
of God. What we have here is the word of God. That was confirmed all the way back in the
first verse of this chapter where it says the word that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw
concerning Judah and Jerusalem. This is a claim from Isaiah to be conveying the word
of God, a word that he has received from the Lord, perhaps through a vision. He saw this
word, not that he heard this word, but that he saw it. God revealed this to him perhaps
in a vision. This is divine revelation, not human imagination or mere human theologizing.
Now we noticed a number of Lord’s Days ago as we considered the earlier portion of this
chapter that in verses two through four, we are given a prophecy of the Messianic New
Covenant Age in which we are privileged to live. One of the things I pointed out on the
last Lord’s Day is that in the book of the prophet Isaiah, there is a sort of a back
and forth between passages that focus on the judgment of the Lord against sin and against
the sins of his people and the nations that surrounded Israel. Then there are passages
that give comfort and hope, hope of restoration that the Lord will bring about through the
promised Messiah, whom we know to be Jesus of course. Well in our passage for today in
verses six through 22, we have once again a judgment oracle and an oracle that continues
on into the following chapter. And this judgment oracle is ultimately fulfilled on the final
judgment day. Isaiah envisions the final day of judgment when all that is proud and lofty
will be brought low and when the Lord alone, Yahweh alone, will be exalted on that final
day. Although that final day of judgment was anticipated by the many historic judgments
that God brought against his sinful people and against the nations. An example of that
of course is the Babylonian exile, which was to happen after this passage was recorded.
And that could be viewed as a proximate or near term fulfillment of passages like this
one. But even those historic judgments such as the Babylonian exile and the destruction
of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, those historic judgments that the word of God predicted
were ultimately anticipations of a final ultimate judgment. Those proximate historic judgments
were anticipations of, foreshadowings of, pointers to the ultimate judgment day, the
final day of judgment. And as we compare scripture with scripture we know that that final day
of judgment will come upon us when our Lord Jesus Christ returns in visible glory at the
end of this present age and raises the dead and then presides over the great white throne
judgment and ultimately brings in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness
dwells. Now what can we learn from this passage? There’s many things. We could spend weeks
in this passage, but I want to focus on just a number of important lessons we glean from
God’s word. First of all, consider the absolute certainty of the judgment day. This passage
makes very clear that a judgment day is coming. And did you notice as I read through this
chapter notice the tone of certainty that pervades and pulsates throughout this passage?
Now let’s focus especially right now on verses 11 through 18. The last day we focused especially
on verses 6 through 11, but let’s pick it up in verse 11 and consider this and through
verse 18. Verse 11 it says, The haughty looks of man shall be brought low and the lofty
pride of men shall be humbled and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. Now this
is repeated almost word for word in verse 17 for emphasis as it says in verse 17. And
the haughtiness of man shall be humbled and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. You know sometimes when we are instructing
or disciplining our children we feel the need to repeat ourselves for emphasis. Well when
God says something once it’s authoritative, it’s absolutely true, we can bank on it. But
when God repeats himself in his word he really wants us to take note. That’s why Jesus was
often fond of saying verily, verily, amen, amen or truly, truly I say to you. In other
words listen up, this is important. We have repetition here because this underscores,
this repetition helps to underscore the certainty of a final judgment day. And on that final
judgment day as we’ve considered on the last Lord’s day, on that final judgment day a great
reversal will take place. The proud sinful man who exalts himself above the Lord, who
regards the Lord’s name as low, instead of hallowing God’s name blasphemes the name of
the Lord or cynically looks down upon those who identify as believers in the Lord. On
that final day proud sinful man will be humbled and abased to the dust. The picture here is
of an absolute humiliation, an absolute humbling of proud lofty man into the dust. But Yahweh
alone will be exalted in that day. Not the Lord plus his faithful servants. The Lord
alone will be exalted. Those of us who by sovereign grace have been redeemed and are
rewarded not because we deserve it or merited it but rewarded by grace and given crowns.
What will we do? We say Lord I deserve this. No we’ll cast it out of the dust. We will
cast our crowns before him and we will give him all the glory. The Lord alone will be
exalted on that day and on that day the first shall be last, the last shall be first. God
alone will be exalted and rebellious mankind will finally and forever be humbled before
him. And then verses 12 through 16 section of this chapter in these verses various exalted
objects in the natural world and the human world are apparently used here as symbols
of proud and lofty things that shall be brought low and ultimately symbols of man’s pride
that shall be humbled. And so it says in verse 12 for the Lord of hosts has a day against
all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and it shall be brought low.
And what are some of the things that are mentioned here by Isaiah as illustrations of things
that are lofty and high? Well look at verse 13. Against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty
and lifted up, these great cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up and against all the oaks
of Bashan. We might think in our own American context of those great redwood trees in California
for example. I think that’s what they’re called right? Those huge trees that seem so permanent,
so lofty, so high, so stable. And then verse 14 against all the lofty mountains, against
all the uplifted hills. There were many mountains and hills in that and there are many mountains
and hills in that region of the world. Against every high tower and against every fortified
wall. You think of something like the Great Wall of China. Mankind in its ingenuity has
throughout its history erected huge walls of protection against foreign enemies. But
even those high towers and every fortified wall will be brought low. Verse 16 against
all the ships of Tarshish and against all the beautiful craft. These were incredible
sea worthy vessels that had been created and that were used for trade in those days. And
then verse 17 again, again, and the haughtiness of man and the lofty pride of men shall be
brought low and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And what are we to make of all
these illustrations? These cedars and oaks of Bashan and these high mountains and these
fortified walls and high towers and beautiful ships of Tarshish and so forth. Well these
are things that mankind tends to view as lofty and exalted. I think Robin is correct
that the prophet, meaning the prophet Isaiah declares that he had his eye on men when he
described the various kinds of loftiness. For God is not displeased with the steep mountains
or tall cedars which he created but informs us that the whole evil lies in men who vainly
trust what is high and lofty. That’s the point. We look to things that seem to us to be high
and lofty and we trust in our own selves as well as high and lofty. But the Lord will
humble those who remain in their pride and rebellion against him. Again, verses 17 and
18 highlight the great reversal. And what will the result of that great reversal be?
Well look at verse 18. When Isaiah was inspired by God to write this passage, the land of
Israel and of course the lands of Israel’s neighbors were saturated with idolatry, filled
with idols, filled with the worship of multiple deities, multiple false gods. But the Lord
is saying there will come a day when all the idols shall utterly pass away. There will
be no more idolatry. There will be no more false worship or false religion on the day
of judgment. Dear ones, our beloved Westminster Confession of Faith in the very last section
of the very last chapter, chapter 33 of the Last Judgment, section 3, says the following.
It says, as Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment
and we can be certainly persuaded because it is a certainty as we see from our passage.
As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment both
to deter all men from sin and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity,
so will he have that day unknown to men that they may shake off all carnal security and
be always watchful because they know not at what hour the Lord will come and may be ever
prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen. Dear listener, even though we do not
know the date of our Lord’s return, Jesus made it clear, no man knows the day or the
hour. And by the way, as an aside, if you ever come across someone who claims to know
when Jesus is going to return, they’re lying or they’re deceived because no man knows
the day or the hour. You cannot predict it. But nevertheless, it is an absolute certainty
that that day is coming. And every day that passes is a day closer to the day when Jesus
our Lord will return in glory and judge humanity. Are you, dear listener, ready for that day?
For it will come upon you and me and all of humanity. And so we see the absolute certainty
of the judgment day revealed in this passage. We also notice this passage highlighting the
inescapable terror of the wicked that is coming on judgment day. This is the second point
on your outline. The inescapable terror of the Lord against the wicked that is coming
on the judgment day. We see this, for example, in verse 10 where it says, Enter into the
rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of
his majesty. Isaiah here under the Spirit’s inspiration is envisioning a time when there
will be a manifestation of the splendor of the Lord’s holy majesty coming against the
wicked in judgment. And what is the response? Isaiah says, Enter into the rock. You better
run. You better seek refuge. But of course there is no ultimate escape from that terror
of the Lord. For as you go down to verse 19 and following it says this, And people shall
enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground from before what? From before
the terror of Yahweh, the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty when
he rises to terrify the earth. Or consider verse 20 and 21. In that day, mankind will
cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, valuable though they may be.
They will cast away their idols of silver, their idols of gold, which they have made
for themselves to worship to the moles and to the bats. To do what? Verse 21. To enter
the caverns of the rocks and the cliffs from before the terror of the Lord and from the
splendor of his majesty when he does what? When he rises to terrify the earth. When he
rises in holy judgment against all that has been unrepentant and rebellious.
So, we have in this passage a picture of the wicked desperately seeking to escape from
the revelation of the majestic holiness of their infinitely holy Lord and Judge. Desperately
seeking a refuge from the holy wrath of God, but it is all in vain. Apart from Jesus Christ,
there is no refuge from the wrath of God against sin. This sort of reminds me of Adam and Eve.
Remember, back in the day, they would eat the forbidden fruit, and they were suddenly
aware of their nakedness, which pointed to not just their physical nakedness, but their
physical nakedness, and they tried to sew fig leaves together. By their own efforts,
they tried to cover up that nakedness, which is a picture of false religion and idolatry.
But then what do they hear? They hear the sound of the Lord coming, often it is translated,
in the cool of the day. But some biblical scholars, like I believe Dr. Meredith Klein,
say that the better translation is likely the Lord was coming, not in the cool of the
days, this sort of idyllic picturesque language, but no, he came in the spirit of the day.
In other words, after Adam and Eve fell, they hear the sound of the Lord coming in the spirit
of the judgment day. No wonder they run and seek to hide from the Lord, because they know
judgment is coming. The Lord is going to confront them with their sin and rebellion. And we
get that similar picture here of the unrepentant wicked seeking refuge from the Lord. Seeking
refuge where? In the caves and the caverns. You know, the land of Judah was, and I believe
still is, quite mountainous. And it offered many caves, many caverns, and fissures in
the rock walls of the terrain where the people could find suitable hiding places from their
military enemies. Remember King David, before he was king, when he was fleeing for his life
from King Saul, who was trying to kill him? David became very skilled in finding hiding
places in the land. Fissures in the rock and caves and caverns where he could hide from
his pursuers. The land of Judah offered many such fissures and caves and caverns to escape
from military enemies. But friends, the point here is that on that final judgment day, not
even the mountains and caves and fissures throughout the land of Judah or anywhere else
for that matter, will be suitable or sufficient to shield the unrepentant wicked from the
holy wrath of the Lord’s majestic holiness. We know in our heart of hearts that we are
sinners. We know the glory of God. And our natural fallen sinful impulse is to run away
from God, to flee from God because we know, we know that the terror, the judging terror
of the Lord is coming upon us. But friends, there is a refuge from the wrath of the Lord
in our hearts. Dr. E.J. Young in his commentary makes a very profound statement. Here are
these words. He writes, the only way to run from God is to run to him. The only way to
run from God, the only way to flee from God’s holy and righteous wrath against your sin
is to run to him, to run to the grace and mercy that he offers to sinners in the person
and saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one
and only safe refuge from the holy wrath of God. He only is our rock, our refuge. He is
our shield and our strength. He is our high tower. May you find your refuge in him. Have
you found refuge from the wrath of God against your sin through trusting in the person of
Jesus Christ who was crucified for the forgiveness of sins and raised from the dead so that by
sovereign grace whoever believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life. His
arms are wide open to sinners who see their need for a refuge from the holy wrath to come.
For Jesus took that wrath upon himself. Jesus made himself the object of the divine arrows
of God’s holy wrath. In fact, God out of love sent his son to pay the penalty for sin to
save his people from their sins. It’s not that Jesus died to make an angry God loving,
though God is angry with our sin, angry against sinners, but God out of love sent Jesus to
satisfy the demands of his own holy wrath. Jesus endured the terror of the Lord on the
cross of Calvary as he bore in his own body and his own soul the holy wrath of the Father
against our sin. He did that in our place, in our stead, brothers and sisters. And he
is our rock. He is our refuge. Is he your rock? Your refuge.
The final thing I would point out briefly from this passage, beloved, we see here in
this passage the worthless futility of false religion in shielding sinners from the divine
wrath. The worthless futility of false religion in shielding sinners from the divine wrath.
Says in verse 20, in that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their
idols of gold. Now think about that. These are not idols of bronze. These are not idols
of worthless material. These are valuable things, valuable objects. These idolaters
treasured their idols, for their idols were of silver and gold, highly valued by them.
But on that day of judgment, what will happen to those idols of silver and gold, which they
made for themselves to worship? They worshiped the objects of their own hands. Where would
they cast these idols of silver and gold? To the moles and to the bats. Into the dark
places of the earth where only moles and bats would dwell. Unclean creatures. In other words,
the valuable idols of silver and gold, so treasured by their worshippers, will be cast
aside in haste and shame and utter contempt as worthless on that final day. For those
who trusted in them, instead of trusting in the Lord, will find their idols to be useless
to deliver them from Yahweh’s majestic avenging presence on the judgment day. And instead,
it says, they will do so. They’ll cast aside their idols. Instead of turning to their idols
and saying, save me, oh God, oh my idol, they’ll cast them aside to enter the caverns of the
rocks and the clefts of the hills from before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor
of His majesty when He rises to terrify the earth. But of course, there will be no real
escape. Escape will then be futile. Because when Jesus returns and when the judgment day
is upon us, the day of grace will have vanished away. The word of God says that today is the
day of salvation. We live in the time between the times. We live in this time, this period
of redemptive history, where our Lord has come and He has died for our sins and risen
from the dead. He reigns at the Father’s right hand. He intercedes. And He is through the
church and through the preaching of the gospel, He is proclaiming good news to the nations
and He is extending that olive branch to all who by sovereign grace would come to Him in
true faith and repentance. And He is calling through the gospel to the world. He is summoning
the earth to repent and believe. This is a day of grace for those who will believe. But
it’s not a day that will last forever. Today is the day of salvation. Therefore, do not
put off until tomorrow what God in sovereign grace brings to you in the gospel. May God
in His sovereign grace not only call you externally, but call you effectually by His Spirit to
personally receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation. And the Bible
says that if you believe, if you trust, you will be saved. What is the conclusion? The
conclusion is here in verse 22. Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what
account is he? To trust in idols, to trust in false religion, to trust in false faith,
especially works-based religion, is to trust in man. And false man-made religions are the
result of the imagination and works of man’s hands. But they are worthless to save your
soul. So turn, dear listener, let us all, and Calvin was right, the human heart, and
this is true of believers as well. We still are guilty of idolatry, even as believers.
Our hearts are factories of idols. Calvin was right in declaring. And the Bible says
the heart is deceitful above measure and desperately wicked, including the heart of the regenerate,
because we still have that sin nature in us, though it is pardoned and mortified in Christ.
So let us, brothers and sisters, let us continually forsake and turn from our idols, whatever
form those idols may take. And instead, let us flee from the wrath to come by fleeing
into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose arms are open wide, who says, come to me all
who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let us flee to him and turn
from idols. And praise God that Jesus Christ, that he is an all-sufficient refuge, that
we are free from the terror of the Lord. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank
you and praise you for Jesus, our glorious Lord and Savior, and for his finished work.
And we would pray, Lord, that we would indeed hate the idols that continue to grip our souls,
that we would forsake them, mortify them, put them to death. And by your grace, may
we once again fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and may
we follow after him, trusting him and him alone. We pray these things, Heavenly Father,
in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
Dear friends, let’s rise and sing together, number 286, Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder,
286.